While moms away

I headed to Newark, New Jersey and Manhattan, NY last week for a brief business trip. I got to meet up with my in-laws who are serving a mission in Manhattan. They're doing great. The trip was a whirlwind but I did manage to finish the third book in the Twilight series on the way home! I was attending a conference on continuous auditing. We can talk about continuous auditing sometime if you're really interested:) Check out the beautiful fall leaves new the Gilstraps home.

We headed to dessert at a hip place in Greenwich Village-yummy!

I arrived home to a pretty grumpy toddler. He's been fairly difficult this week. It didn't dawn on me until my friend Lina said this is typical for kids when their moms leave. ah-hah! I'd forgotten. Last time I left for a few days Dallin sure made me pay for it! Has anyone else experienced that?? Maybe it's a function of him being the numbers of fingers he's holding up?

Wednesday afternoon I decided to do something fun. Dallin is always wanting to take a train ride so we went to the nearest light rail station and headed to downtown San Jose. We packed a picnic and took the train to park downtown. After eating outside we headed into the Childrens Museum. This place has got to be one of the coolest places for kids: art projects, water station, face painting, fire trucks, pizza creations, etc. We had a great time and here's the pictures to prove it. I may have almost made up for being gone for 3.5 days!!

I followed instructions and let Dallin paint his own face:

My little pizza maker:

Harvest Festival!

Saturday marked our second-annual trip to the Harvest Festival in Fremont. It's this great farm that's still operating. We picked popcorn and indian corn, rode the train, and sampled homemade ice cream, popcorn, and cookies made in a fire-burning stove. The magic show was also really great. We learned Evan was made to work on a farm; he picked about 60 ears of corn in about 10 minutes.
To prove I was there, I had to do a self-portrait...

Dallin was a good helper shucking the corn. The rule is you can keep half of what you harvest so we've got a nice supply of popcorn. Don't be surprised if this is your Christmas gift this year!!

Notice D's new do? I cut the top last Sunday night so all day Monday he was running around with a mullet. I was so embarrassed. I met a new mom at the park Monday and instantly I felt I needed to explain that his haircut was a work in progress. Evan on the other hand couldn't wait to take pictures. I was sure to cut the rest of Dallin's hair before a single picture was taken! Dallin will thank me one day for this.

On another note, this morning I was getting ready for an early church ward council meeting. Sweet Dallin was up at 6:30 and helped me get ready (he stands on the toilet and brushes his teeth for about 15 minutes, putting the toothpaste tube in the water, squirting toothpaste everywhere. No matter how much I talk about wasting water that water does not go off full blast). When I went to leave at 7:15, Dallin turned hysterical "Mommy, I want go church! I want go!" Isn't that what every mom wants to hear?! What a sweet boy. I hope he says that when he's 15.

Dallin LOVES church. In fact, we cannot keep him with us. He spends the majority of his time bouncing between Logan & Toby, Maya & Ella, and Brent & Emily (all of his friends). When the first hour is up, he is off RUNNING up the stairs to nursery.